To compare my training to a swimming pool, I feel that since January I’ve had one foot in the pool and the other out on the deck, not ready to fully commit to jumping in.  I guess I had the mentality that because IMAZ was ‘so far away’ and Triple-t in May was ‘just for fun’ that there was no rush or pressure to be in ‘real’ training mode.  I had what? 10, 9 months?  Pfft.  Plenty of time.  Over the course of my training there were occasions where I blew off workouts because I was ‘tired’ or just plain didn’t feel like it (I may or may not have had a meltdown on my trainer….it’s too darn early in the season for meltdowns!).  However, now that my training volume is really starting to ramp up to more than just a little run, or a half hour on my trainer, I really need to get my head in the game and take it seriously.  Whether I’m ready or not, I am in training mode and need to act like it!  IMAZ is less than 8 months away!!  Still lots of time to train, but also not enough so keep treating my training like I have.  So starting this week I’m going to jump headfirst into the ‘pool’ and stop being half-in half-out attitude-wise.

I’m finally ready to dive in headfirst!

Of course this doesn’t mean that all I will be doing is working, training, eating, and sleeping – I still plan to have a life outside of all of that (although I’m sure the couple of months before the race it will be a different story), but I am going to make my workouts a priority.  When my alarm goes off at 5a to head to the pool, I won’t blow it off ‘because it’s too early’.  Or when I’m tired after work and just want to sit on the couch rather than ride my trainer (and eat oatmeal raisin cookies), I’ll get my butt on my trainer and get that workout done!

What brought all of this on (other than the fact that time is actually moving forward and the race is slowly but surely getting closer) is that this week is my first week of 10+ hours of training.  I guess it just took the double-digit number to make me realize that I am really training for an Ironman, and need to start acting like it.  I’m not flailing around in the pool or sweating up a nasty storm on my trainer for the heck of it.  I realize I will have many more weeks of 10+ hours of training, but for some reason this one feels like a milestone because it will be my first for this training cycle.  Double digits sound serious to me, last summer I only had three weeks of double-digit training weeks, and I felt super hardcore doing those 🙂

On top of the training, I am going to reaaaaalllyyy focus on eating better, which I have done a pretty good job on, but there are a few areas that I would like to improve: nighttime eating (oatmeal raisin cookies) and the weekends.   Last night I managed to cook my lunches for the rest of the week and have a plan for dinner each night as well.   Since Monday’s are my ‘rest’ day I’ve decided that will be the evening that I plan the meals for my week. I realize Sunday’s seem like they would be the most logical night to do that, but it never seems to work out for me when I try to do that, so I’m going to try out Monday evenings.  Plus, it will keep me from spending the whole night on my couch 🙂

Heading out for my 60 minute run followed by a swim!